[MUD-Dev] Re: After a long absense, a semi-return (and TFD)

[J C Lawrence]

On Sat, 26 Sep 1998 16:41:50 -1000 
Nathan F Yospe<yospe at hawaii.edu> wrote:

> We've discussed many times some of my favorite topics. AI, NLP,
> crafting room descriptions, and simulation persistance... but there
> is one topic, which I have never actually seen discussed here, that
> concerns me. Where do you put the tabs for admin control? Dikus have
> imm commands (wizhelp, etc), LPs have coder privlidges, and M*s
> have... well, on some of them I see coder bits everywhere, but... in
> all cases, there is a handle for an admin to do things beyond the
> ken of an ordinary player - *as a player*.

> Here I differ a little in philosophy. All players... all
> characters... a character controlled by an admin, or one controlled
> by a newbie... start out the same, and none has any way - as a
> character - to affect the game world, beyond actions as a *normal*
> character. Admins affect things as a force of nature, from an
> administrative account, by such hooks as linked world addition,
> transfer, creation, and deletion, control of NPCs, large scale
> alteration of environments by means of property editors... all as,
> and I consider this important, a purely administrative
> function. There's nothing personified about the interface, aside
> from NPC control, and the admin has no face or name.

What is the difference between an admin character able to alter the
world thru super-commands, and a normal "puny" character whose player
also has access to the admin console of the game?  The difference can
easily be argued as non-existent.  Many of the
support-admin-characters designs support their design choice on the
basis that there is no effective difference and allow characters to
have admin controls makes for ease of use in administration (you play
a character, see what a player would see, and fix it).  

The way they are different is in the ease with which an admin console
can locate and manipulate objects perceived by a player character.  If
that mapping is difficult, then the seperation can be significant.  If
it is very easy there is generally no effective difference betteen the
undistinguished case and the seperated admin console.

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...